


For the ones that feel it the most

by Lenore



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: First Time, Grief, Healing, M/M, Porn Battle, Substitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 03:46:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man who has something to lose is the most dangerous man of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the ones that feel it the most

John has nothing left. Nothing anyone can use against him. London’s criminals appear incapable of grasping this simple fact.

“Someone wants a word with you.” Baba smiles when she holds out the phone. John imagines that he catches a whiff of hell, sulfur mixed with the mothball scent of old women.

He can afford the luxury of a smirk as he puts the phone to his ear. Zoe is beyond all harm, and Alice is no one’s victim. Jenny has an entire ocean for protection, safely tucked away amongst the sun and sand where no one will find her. He left Justin not ten minutes ago in the fluorescent embrace of the police station with its two hundred officers standing between him and danger.

Nothing, no one. Except. His heart lurches with a feeling that has become far too familiar—terror and responsibility, fury and helplessness all mingled together—even before Mark’s voice sounds in his ear.

“John,” Mark says, steady and calmly desolate.

Baba smiles again, showing a row of small, yellowed teeth. The brimstone stench grows stronger.

“John.” It’s softer this time, a plea. _Don’t do what they want. It doesn’t matter what happens to me._

But of course it does.

“Be seeing you soon, mate,” John says, as matter-of-factly as if they were arranging one of their evenings playing chess.

He pushes the phone back at Baba, who thinks she’s won.

“Now let’s get down to business, shall we?” Her smile transmutes into a shark’s grin.

She has no idea the hell that’s about to rain down on her.

* * *

If John had ever been asked whether someone could engineer an all-out war among London’s criminal elements, leaving half the city's worst miscreants dead in the span of a single day, he probably would have said no. Even if that someone knew all the most brittle places, knew just where to apply to pressure, he still would have said it couldn’t be done.

He would have been wrong, as it turns out.

* * *

It isn’t hard to threaten Mark’s location out of Baba’s gravity-less underlings once her rivals have done John’s dirty work for him and sent the old cow to damnation. The entire police force is occupied in the wake of the bloody urban warfare, leaving John on his own to take care of what is by rights his responsibility alone.

He finds Mark tied to a chair in a filthy hovel of a council flat, empty otherwise save for the rubbish scattered about the stained carpet. Mark is rumpled and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, one cheek mottled blue and purple from someone’s fist. The dip of his chest as he breathes in and out is so piercingly beautiful John has to lower his eyes, just for a moment.

Mark rubs his wrists ruefully once John undoes the bonds, his fingers stiff and awkward. “I suspect it’s best I don’t ask how you’ve managed this rescue.” He says it dryly, but the corner of his mouth tilts up just the barest hint.

“Ignorance may not be bliss.” John puts a hand on Mark’s shoulder, guiding him to the door, helping to hold him up. “But it can be useful when you’re questioned by the authorities.”

Mark snorts a laugh. John feels the vibration of it, the solidity of muscle beneath his hand, warm and alive and thank God.

At Mark’s flat, John follows him inside, locks the door, and checks that it’s secure three times before he lets out the breath he’s been holding. Mark stalls in the middle of the room, looking a bit lost at sea, glancing around with a softly surprised expression as if he barely recognizes the place, as if he’s lost the knack for how to exist here in just the day he’s been gone.

The bruise on his cheek appears more livid now that John can see it in the light, and there are other scrapes visible as well. Mark didn’t go with his kidnappers easily. The damage is no more, possibly less, than John has done himself, and yet he still feels shards of hate cut into him. He can only hope that the people responsible for it are among those lying cold on the coroner’s slab.

“There’s no need to look so grim. I’m fine.” Mark rubs tiredly at his temple. “Maybe a cup of tea?”

John wants, but not tea, doesn't know what he needs until he has his hand laid against Mark's cheek, his mouth on Mark's, not anything he ever expected. Once he's begun, though, it feels right. Necessary.

Mark merely lets John kiss him at first, and even when he does finally kiss back, it feels as if he’s indulging John's whim, until it doesn't feel like that at all, until Mark is panting and his teeth are sharp against John's lip and he's grasping at John just as desperately as John is grasping for him.

"I'm not—" Mark says, out of breath when he breaks the kiss. "Not her." His voice goes quiet on the last word.

"No." John presses his face against Mark's throat. "You're not."

He could say: _But you're the closest I can get._ That would only be part of it, though. He breathes in, warmth and day-old sweat and life. _But I wasn't too late to save you._ This isn’t the whole story either.

Mark's room has a sad air of disuse, as if the bed is too lonely an expanse to bear. John imagines him folded up on the couch, or maybe he doesn't sleep much at all. They take off their clothes, and Mark lies back on the bed, looking tired and worn, and John stretches out beside him.

It's always been women for John, so he's never given much thought to men's bodies. Mark's is long and lean, with the wiry strength of a runner, and John follows the lines of Mark's muscles with his palm, appreciatively. Wanting is wanting, he realizes.

"Do you have any clue what you're doing?" Mark asks with a half-smile.

John shakes his head. "You?"

"Not in the least."

"I expect we'll figure it out." He kisses along Mark's jaw and settles his weight on top of him.

Wanting is wanting, and John does what he does best, follows his instinct. It leads him to push his tongue against Mark’s nipple in soft strokes until the flesh is red and straining and Mark is twisting beneath him. He runs his fingers lightly up the length of Mark’s leg, stirring the hair with his touch, feeling the strength of muscle and bone. The inside of Mark’s elbow, John finds, holds his scent as intensely as the crease of his thigh.

Mark seems almost reluctant, slow to touch back, his pleasure noises given up only grudgingly, and John would think he doesn’t want this if he didn’t have the evidence of Mark’s desire pressed hot and hard against his hip.

“John,” Mark mutters, a harsh exhalation, angry sounding, and then reluctance gives way to frantic fury. He pulls John against him, his fingers digging into John’s back as he ruts up hard enough to leave bruises on them both. John understands then. Sometimes it’s easier just to feel nothing.

“Mark,” he says, soothing, stroking Mark’s arm, kissing his mouth.

A sound spills out of Mark, broken and wanting, and he hooks his leg across the small of John’s back, pushing up, pulling John in. They move together, clumsy and grunting and desperate, until they’re spent at last, sticky and sheened with sweat and out of breath.

John could get up and put on his clothes and go home, probably should do, but there’s nothing and no one waiting for him there. He mops them both with a corner of the sheet and flops back against the mattress and stares up at the water-marked ceiling.

“Did your sudden appearance this afternoon have anything to do with the crime war I heard being reported on the radio while you were driving me home?”

They are still touching in places, shoulders, hips, bare thighs, and John’s skin feels greedy for more. "What happened to not asking?"

There’s a pause while that settles in and then Mark lets out a harsh laugh. "You're absolutely mad, you do realize that?"

John nods, because he does, and then he kisses Mark’s shoulder. Because he wants to.

"Which makes me even madder for admiring you." He pulls John’s arm around him and curls their fingers together. John gets the distinct impression that he’s smiling.

There are words John could put to this moment to try to explain it: grief and consolation and the kind of relief that leaves you dizzy and momentarily displaced. None of these things lasts forever, he knows, but the future concerns him less than it ever has before.

He'll take now. He'll take this, for whatever it is, for however long it lasts.


End file.
